In a recent exchange of emails with a man who wrote to object to some of my writings, I was astonished at how quickly he "went for the jugular" to use a vulgar expression. Simply because I disagreed with his view I was immediately branded—by innuendo—to be a promoter of heretics and a partaker of the evil that others do. How did I manage to do all of this? Because I would not denounce a historical but controversial prominent religious figure in American culture during the Second Great Awakening. Furthermore, I mentioned in passing that a contemporary Hollywood film did an excellent job of portraying the cruelties of the crucifixion of Christ.

This is not my first experience with irrational rhetoric under the disguise of "exhortation" and it will probably not be my last. For thirty-two years as a local pastor I was subject to the emotional diatribes of Christian people who lashed out when things did not go their way. As a pastor I had to endure the nonsense. Today—no longer a local pastor—I have the freedom to say to such individuals, "Enough is enough. Stop it. Reign in the rhetoric. Stop writing the way you do."

Let the world shout out its vileness if it must—manifested in the riotous demonstrators in streets throughout the world. Let the political pundits write and rant and rave at one another in the public arena as they will. But let God’s people season their conversation with grace. "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man" (Col 4:6).

I can admire and appreciate the zeal of a person for purity in self and others but sometimes, when they are Pharisaical in their spirit I will have to admire and appreciate them from a distance. My objective is to live as much as possible peaceably with all men (Romans 12:8). With some it is not possible for they have zeal for God but not according to knowledge (Romans 10:2). There are individuals who know the doctrines of grace but know nothing about God’s grace found in those doctrines. So they are angry with anyone and everyone who disagrees with their understanding of Scripture. They have yet to realize it is possible for people to have good hearts and hold to bad theology. They have yet to mature spiritually enough to realize that "a soft answer turneth away wrath" (Prov 15:1) – not just in others but more importantly in self! They have yet to hear Jesus say to those who are trying to serve the Lord with the understanding they have, "he that is not against us is on our part" (Mark 9:38-41). I have a brief word for my overzealous brothers and sisters in Christ who believe they are doing God’s work by writing hostile letters and emails etc against other Christians trying to discredit them or correct them and that word is simply this: Reign in the rhetoric.

"Some people's idea of [free speech] is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage" (Winston Churchill).